Te Awamutu old boy Kerry Paul outside the business he founded with the book he has written about his family. Photo / Dean Taylor
Te Awamutu old boy Kerry Paul outside the business he founded with the book he has written about his family. Photo / Dean Taylor
Kerry Paul is a Te Awamutu old boy of modest beginnings, but who can justifiably be proud of what he has achieved, especially what he has achieved in and for his hometown.
But he says his story is not uncommon for his family and he has written a book to illustrate the point - Stories of a New Zealand family.
The story starts in 1893 when George Paul and Elizabeth Lang met on Wynyard Wharf in Auckland and fell in love.
George was home on holiday from his work in Sydney and Elizabeth had landed from Colville on her family’s kauri scow.
Future plans quickly changed and the couple were soon married and went on to raise 13 children, with the focus of their lives being Te Awamutu.
Kerry says the motivation to write the story came when he realised two things: the older generation of Paul’s was passing away; and he was meeting a lot of relations at the funerals he didn’t know he had.
He says many people dabble in family trees and genealogy, but he decided to approach it the same way he had his businesses, with a plan and an end goal.
George and Elizabeth Paul circa 1950. Photo / Supplied
Kerry discovered entrepreneurship in the Paul family, a determination to get things done and a love for horses, the sea and the Te Awamutu and Waikato areas.
He went to great lengths to gather the information, including travel to meet long-lost relatives.
The book is divided into chapters about different people and times in the family’s history.
There is some repeated information, but that is because Kerry designed each chapter to be able to stand alone.
His chapter is last, and in it he outlines the contribution he made to Te Awamutu commerce.
The first came when he was a strategic planner for the New Zealand Dairy Group from 1980-1993.
The future of the Te Awamutu dairy factory was at risk, with plans for a new wholemilk powder drier at Kerepehi likely to see Te Awamutu close, with the loss of 250 jobs.
Kerry’s job was to evaluate all variables and come up with a recommendation.
It was to build the plant at Te Awamutu, and against stern opposition, the recommendation was adopted.
The plant was commissioned in 1987 and 28 jobs were added to Te Awamutu. In contrast, Kerepehi factories closed in 1991 due to Te Awamutu’s new capacity and that community declined.
Then in 2006 Kerry was the founding CEO of Manuka Health New Zealand in Te Awamutu.
Manuka Health turned Te Awamutu into a major centre for the mnuka honey industry. In nine years from 2006 the business grew to $73 million in sales per year to become a major global brand distributed to 50 countries.
By 2014 a new world-leading honey processing, laboratory and distribution centre had been opened, employing 120 staff and operating more than 8000 hives across the North Island.
Laurie Street house in 1960 originally owned by George and Elizabeth Paul, then their son Neil and his wife Maureen who raised Kerry Paul and his sister Lynne there. Photo / Supplied
Kerry was also responsible for identifying that methylglyoxal was the ingredient that gave mānuka honey the stable anti-bacterial activity and led the charge to have an MGO rating adopted as the leading standard to market the product.
This was instrumental in giving manuka honey credibility worldwide with export sales growing from $25m in 2006 to $550m in 2020.
Kerry’s uncle Don was a beekeeper in and around Te Awamutu in the 1930s and an early adopter of specialist mānuka honey.
Kerry says this is one of many examples of the Paul family following and learning from each other.
George Paul went on to realise a dream and become a pioneer of the New Zealand horse-racing industry.
He also got into the transport business, establishing horse teams and purchasing livery stables on Mahoe St, later to become Advance Cars.
His eldest sister Christina married Mangere farmer William Massey, later an MP and then New Zealand’s second longest-serving Prime Minister from 1912 until 1925.
Christina supported her husband but was known for many of her own achievements and in 1926 she was appointed New Zealand’s first Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Te Awamutu Pauls also developed a love for Kawhia and Aotea and generations of the family-owned properties there for holidays.
Two Paul brothers, Archie and Don, operated a fishing business. Don was married to local Millie (nee Thompson) from a rugby-mad family who had started the famous Mooloo cowbell tradition to upset opposition teams.
Kerry’s book also harks back to “Fighting Pauls” - a family that fought with distinction in the great wars.
The book was completed and published by Kerry early this year and he has spent much of his time travelling around New Zealand, and overseas, to give copies to family members.
He says he has given away over 300 books so far.
Next week he returns home, and in fact to the site of George Paul’s Livery Stables, when he holds a book launch at Red Kitchen.
The event takes place on Tuesday between 10am and 2pm and Kerry invites people to receive a book if they are interested in the lives of the Paul family, starting with George and Elizabeth through to the present day.
